Ripping out classroom money to pay for the Red Plan has also meant that the Administrators are now short of funds to operate. That’s no problem unless the School Board continues to unreasonably demand that some small ray of sunlight continue to be shone on school board actions.
This plea to stop producing complete School Board minutes was recently sent to the School Board by Bill Hanson:
April 30, 2010
To: School Board
From: Bill Hanson
Cc: Keith Dixon
Re: April 20, 2010 Board Meeting discussionI am writing to share my disappointment, and clarify for you my disagreement with the direction that you have pointed us in, relative to producing the minutes of your regular monthly board meetings.
Given the unprecedented period of human resource reduction that we continue to experience, we need to continue to look for every possible opportunity to reduce the amount of effort our staff spends on current tasks. This is particularly necessary as a result of the new requests that we consistently get for information and reporting from MDE, the federal government and other funding entities that we deal with on a regular basis. Unfortunately, your discussion from the other night points us in a direction that will require us to spend significantly more time to prepare meeting minutes. As a result, we will have less time for other required tasks, and/or tasks more closely associated to delivering education and obtaining or retaining funding. Please keep in mind that Roberts Rules of Order states that the only requirement of minutes is to “record what was done at the meeting, not what was said by the members” (refer to page 451, section 48, copy is attached). While this additional investment of time and the resulting detail with the minutes may provide information that is “nice to have” I would challenge you to consider whether it truly would add enough value to the process to justify the additional time it will require.
We recently completed the process of adopting our budget considerations for next year. As you know, we continue to reduce our investment in several areas that are “nice to have.”
In addition, if the goal of the comments regarding minutes was truly to improve a process and report, I would say that your administrative team prefers a more positive and proactive approach to identifying opportunities for improvement. Given that the meeting information is generally delivered on a timely basis, you can contact us by phone or email prior to the meeting to share your comments, corrections or suggestions. Following this model would create a more positive process for all of us compared to what was used at the board meeting.
I encourage you to reconsider the direction that you have given us with regards to the details of the minutes. As a final comment, I would add that we did spend the time to review the DVD of the March 16, 2010 regular board meeting. The statement made by a board member that a motion to approve the business committee agenda was not made and voted on is clearly untrue given the following as viewed on the DVD:
10: 17 pm Motion by member Wasson to approve the Business Committee report
10: 17 pm Second of the motion by member Seliga-Punyko
10: 54 pm Motion approved on a 5-2 vote (Nay votes by members Glass & Johnston)If you would like to view this video record as part of an upcoming meeting or in any other way, please let me know.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
